Stay With Me
by FreezePride
Summary: Even (Vexen), Aeleus (Lexaeus) Experimentation can go too far when. It's lucky for Even that there is someone around to make sure he's alright once it does. [ LexVex, Aeleus/Even ]


It might have been almost comical if he had not been familiar with the circumstances, involving the character of the man before him. He had tensed and fallen without the slightest prompting, and granted, while the motion and ark of his slender figure was rather graceful, it all tended to end in him rather crumpled up on the floor, lit by the harsh florescent lights of the lab, with only the slight glow of the outside moonlight to soften him slightly. It had not made the action any more natural seeming. Aeleus had been passing his labs just a moment before and he had to admit that he was stunned. The man had simply collapsed without any rhyme or reason.

Even had started to pant softly as Aeleus rushed to his side, lifting him up with an ease that surprised even him. He had known that the scientist was skinny by his own standards, but he weighed so little, it was hard to believe that he could be considered healthy. Though well defined, his bone structure seemed delicate on the face of an unconscious man. "Even." He prompted, giving him a gentle shake. "Even, wake up." He was fighting to keep his voice calm in the midst of his growing panic, but letting his emotion cloud his mind would do him little to no good whatsoever. The entire situation seemed so very hazy, otherworldly, as though it should not have been real.

Even groaned and an uncharacteristic curse escaped his thin lips in a hiss. He attempted to prop himself up on his slender arms and failed miserably, collapsing back into Aeleus who still seemed to be astonished by the sheer strangeness of the entire scene. He chuckled, and rather suddenly it seemed startlingly clear to Aeleus that something was going terribly wrong. This was no simple mistake, he didn't just take a misstep and pay the consequences by looking rather foolish. There was far more to it here.

"Aeleus." He murmured, unfocused. Even always referred to him as such, clearly by his first name. There was a tone of respect that he reserved for the guard which he tended to utilize only with his peers. The guardian might have been proud of this fact if his thoughts were not quite so jumbled. "Aeleus, I'm glad you're here. Yes, yes." He agreed with a vague nod, sending his usually tidy hair in cornsilk rivulets over his pale face. "You can record the proceedings. I know writing is a secondary skill, but you've gotten quite good at it and-" A short gasp interrupted his thought as his eyes lolled backwards, carrying his head with it. Aeleus pulled him back upright gently, his look of concern giving way to shock once again as he tried to keep the other man from lolling back. Wondering what could possibly throw this man into such hysterics and perhaps out of sheer curiosity, he placed his hand gently on the other man's forehead.

He was burning up.

By the guard's estimation, the scientist needed to cool down immediately. His body was obviously trying to kill something from the inside out, but he might end up destroying himself before it was even possible. Fevers were a natural defense, but a deadly one all the same. The guard was no chemist, but whatever had happened, it was battling within the other man and it was a fight he could not help win. Damned if he would take the circumstances sitting down though. The snow had settled into a comfortable crystalline blanket beneath the stars outside the windows of the Radiant Garden castle, twinkling with the keen, soft glow that only a frozen landscape could fool a viewer into thinking it was beautiful. It was cold, Aeleus concluded, picking up the rag-doll that was Even and letting the slim frame droop against him.

"Where are you taking me?" He heard the annoyed, yet entirely slurred words of his counterpart asked with an unwarranted note of annoyance as his claw-like fingertips dug into his tidy, but weatherworn uniform. He dashed by the study, the labs, the library, the clack of his boots on the tiled floors eliciting memories as they went, of a simpler, more logical time when Aeleus had just arrived, only a few short weeks after turning from a lonely ten year old into an orphaned eleven year old. Words no longer came to him. They were alien, foreign and so very pointless. No, he would rather have kept to the silence for the rest of his listless days, but a young prodigy had made sure that things had turned out quite a bit differently for him, forcing him to speak, forcing him to read, forcing him to exist and convincing him that he was not the monster he had been so sure had driven his remaining parent to the cold embrace of death.

"You are intelligent. I know, so don't try to deny it." The quirky young pupil had quipped with an accusatory note. Aeleus had stayed silent; Even was thirteen at the time, which was more than enough his senior to accuse him of being idiotic at the slightest prompting. Thus their relationship had began.

Was it now, very rapidly, ending? The clack of boots gave way to the crisp crunch of snow as he all but catapulted himself into the courtyard, carrying the scientist as though he were a minuscule wounded animal in his care, and frankly, he seemed more than comparable to one. For as peaceful of a night it was, the cold was biting, and it tore at his voice, catching him in a gripping vice as he lost his footing. With a strangled gasp, he fell heavily into the snow, holding himself back and ignoring the pain his his massive hands in lieu of keeping Even safe. He was well aware that he was rather solidly built for an eighteen year old, but that would never excuse any clumsiness when it came to the incapacitated scientist.

By the Gods and the Darkness within Light, he was going to save Even.

"It was for the results. It was foolish, I know it was. I should not have consumed it, but Master Ansem, he seemed so dismayed. You know how he gets with inconclusive data, yes? Yes. I thought he would be proud of my innovative thinking, my risk taking." The words spilled from him, jittery yet slurred with the effort of maintaining focus. "He's not even here, Aeleus. He's not even here to see it. I feel as though I shall cease to exist tonight." His words were unpredictably strung together, so very like and yet unlike him. It was the ceaseless fight between emotion and logic which raged ever beneath the surface of Even's being, of his terrible and brilliant mind.

"Stay with me, Even." Aeleus said softly, his low voice quite the comfort despite the shaking of his hands. His tone was tempered with a fear which the guard could not name. Was it fear of death which drove him forward, or was it the fear of losing him? He gathered a fistful of snow and gently pressed it to the young academic's forehead. Even sighed, giddy at the prospect of having something to cool off his rapidly heating body. Damn it, where was Ansem at a time like this?

"He would have noticed, Aeleus. I think he would have praised it. I was being brave, or perhaps just stupid. What sort of idiotic scientist undergoes his own experiments? Oh, for darkness sake, I just wish that he were here to see. He would know what to do. He would record the evidence. He would be here. I told him to be here. I pleaded-" He rasped, water running down his forehead, along his scalp, clinging to the curves of his face and shining along strands of cornsilk hair like a needy lover and refusing to reveal if the water in his eyes was simply just that, water. He dug his slender fingers into the fresh snow as though grasping for answers. He looked so young in this fevered state, his brow flushed to a vibrant pink, his eyes unfocused and pleading. Within normal circumstances, Aeleus found it hard to believe that Even was twenty one years old, for he wielded authority over the castle as though he were the owner, as if he were the master. But he were not the master. Though he claimed to be the leading academic, it still held true, he was barely an adult, still stumbling blindly through his emotions.

"I'm glad that you're here, Aeleus." The scientist's voice sounded strikingly distant as he gave the guard a tired smile. In a heartbeat he could sense that frustration within him, so very beaten down and tempered into cold acceptance that he directed all of his frustrations at others, at every question of his authority, at all of the slanderous rumors that had been made in the wake of his retreating back. This was a boy who had fought for the attention that he had achieved, and a man who was never quite satisfied with who he had become.

"Stay with me, Even." Aeleus warned him once again, his low, soft voice a undefinable comfort as he held even more of the snow to the scientist's burning forehead. Even giggled eerily in response.

"I am just so glad you're here. I know it's a fact, you do not want to be. No one ever wants to be around me, but I am just glad." He babbled, his lips turning rather speedily from fevered pink to white. His skin lost all color entirely. For all Aeleus could tell he could have been an ice sculpture. He ran his calloused hand gently over the other man's head; yes, the fever, it was receding as the other man sighed with a note of discontent. "I do not typically say these sorts of things, for they are not fact. Opinions are irrelevant and unpredictable, feelings are so messy. I'm so glad that you are here. No one notices, but I notice, I promise that I do. I see how intelligent you are. I've always," He paused, fixating him with those brilliant green, yet staggeringly exhausted eyes as he blinked slowly, fighting sleep. "I've always wondered, what is it that you want?"

The snow fell gently around them, slowly covering the violent deep marring scars of Aeleus' footsteps, of Even's desperate gestures with a fresh blanket, trying to cover the past yet only half succeeding in moving forward. Aeleus panted. He had not yet realized that he had been holding his breath. Shaking the snowflakes from his head, he cast the prodigious man a knowing, yet comfortingly rare smile. "Just stay with me, Even."


End file.
